Muskism—its roots, nature, and how to fight it: A Conversation with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff

Today I am delighted to talk with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff about their new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. This is much more than a biography or popular account of Elon Musk, it is a radical analysis of a deeply disturbing, computational way of seeing the world. We see a mind that is profoundly troubled by any contagion spreading into seemingly closed systems—it can take the form of racial others, transpeople, “woke” populations, or most generally and dismissively, “Non-Player-Characters.” We talk about the dangers this mindset and its manifestations have on democracy and the public sphere, and argue that what we should do is to “embrace the woke-mind virus as a counter-revolutionary act.”

Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. His books, which have been translated into ten languages, include Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World without Democracy, and Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ and the Capitalism of the Far Right . His most recent book, co-authored with Ban Tarnoff, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Slobodian is a Guggenheim Fellow for 2025-6; he has been an associate fellow at Chatham House and held residential fellowships at Harvard University and Free University Berlin. Project Syndicate put him on a list of 30 Forward Thinkers and Prospect UK named him one of the World’s 25 Top Thinkers.

Ben Tarnoff is a writer from Massachusetts. He is the co-author, with Quinn Slobodian, of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed.